22yo John Krause Found Drowned in Arizona Canal

The body of 22-year-old John Krause was retrieved from a Mesa Arizona canal on Friday night.

A police spokesperson indicated there were "no signs of foul play" in Krause's apparent drowning but they are still investigating the case.

It's not yet known how John Krause entered the water and died there or when, but his is the second body to be pulled from that waterway in recent days.

Last weekend a worker clearing one of Mesa's canal gates near Brown Road spotted a man's corpse trapped in the debris.

According to description, the unidentified victim's remains were in an advanced stage of decomposition, suggesting he had been submerged for quite some time.

That earlier death has been labeled suspicious however, though the status of the police inquiry is unknown at this time.

Neither man found drowned in mid April 2016 is the first to ever perish in Arizona's fresh waterways.

One of the most high profile disappearances and "accidental" deaths in that largely arid state occurred in downtown Tempe during November of 2012.

That year Arizona college student Jack Culolias vanished after being thrown out of a crowded college bar where he was celebrating "Hell Week" without about 200 of his classmates.

The missing young man's body was discovered about a month later in an area of the Salt River thoroughly searched before due to its close proximity to the Cadillac Ranch where Culolias was last seen alive.

His family, including an identical twin, have since sued the bar for a host of improprieties which they believe led up to and resulted in his wrongful death.

EPONYMOUS ROX

Jack Culolias found drowned

The search for a missing 19-year-old Arizona State University student appears to have tragically ended:

 

Officials say the body of a young man who was fished out of the Salt River two days ago was garbed in the same clothing Jack Culolias was last known to be wearing.

 

The corpse also had on a red Vans sneaker, the perfect match to one found on the riverbank in the beginning of December when family and friends first scoured the area.

 

Culolias mysteriously vanished after reportedly being roughed up by bouncers at the Cadillac Ranch in the Tempe Marketplace.

 

Security personnel there say they were forced to eject him twice from the bar-and-grill because he was so intoxicated he was urinating from the balcony. However they were unable to find any surveillance tape documenting the event.

 

It is not clear if those bouncers were ever brought in for questioning, but police are asserting today that there is "no foul play" involved in Culolias' death. They think the 19-year-old ASU frat-pledge probably went down to the water to relieve himself and "accidentally" fell in it and drowned.

 

Because the young man had just been caught in the act of urinating, some think that an unlikely theory.

 

Adding to the puzzle of Culolias' sudden disappearance is the fact that his body was found floating in a locale that had already been thoroughly combed by the community before. As well it had been searched by police tactical dive teams equipped with state-of-the-art sonar.

 

There has been no official word from the family yet.

 

Has Jack Culolias been found?

BREAKING NEWS

UPDATE December 28, 2012: Body of Jack Culolias has officially been identified this week. Police claim the young man "accidentally" drowned in the area of the nearby river that had already been thoroughly searched when he first went missing. They also say there is "no signs of foul play" in either his disappearance from the Cadillac Ranch in Tempe Arizona or in his subsequent death. Use the search box to find all posts concerning Culolias. [NOTE: I'd like to interview parties involved in this case for the VOICES OF THE DEAD feature. Please make contact via the comment section below or here if interested.]

UPDATE December 16, 2012: A dead body was spotted in the water this morning in the vicinity of where Jack Culolias first disappeared from Tempe Marketplace in Arizona on November 30th. Police are currently on the scene and attempting to retrieve the corpse, but have not confirmed if it is that of the missing ASU student.

However, Sgt. Mike Pooley issued this statement to the media: "We believe there's a good chance this is Jack Culolias," he said. "Right now, there are no signs of foul play."

That remains to be seen though, since the area in question was thoroughly searched before, not only by large search parties but with tactical dive teams equipped with sophisticated sonar, and Culolias wasn't there.

Asked about that Sgt. Pooley quickly answered, "What we're thinking is because of all the rain we've been getting, the water level has significantly risen just in the past couple of days...So, we're thinking if this is indeed Jack and if this body was down there it was obviously lodged in between something and the water level has brought it up quite a bit."

Of course, that's not exactly how it works--a submerged body "refloats" to the surface once putrefaction begins to set in, the gases in the gut literally lifting it up like a helium ballon. How quickly this happens depends on the water temperatures. Read more drown forensics here. 

This is the second corpse discovered in water in this area in as many weeks. Earlier last week, body parts and skeletal remains were found in a Phoenix storm drain located less than 10 miles from the Cadillac Ranch, the bar and grill where Culolias was reported to have been ejected by bouncers before vanishing. Last heard, medical examiners were trying to identify those remains too, but there has been no word on whether they've achieved this as yet.  (Updates, if any, will be added here again.)
 

ORIGINAL STORY:

Arizona State University student Jack Culolias, 19, is still officially listed as missing ever since the evening of November 30th when he vanished after being ejected by bouncers from the Cadilla Ranch bar-and-grill in downtown Tempe.

 

And, despite intense searches for him in and around the waters of the Salt River and the Tempe Town Lake where his sneaker was found, there have been no substantial clues as to his sudden disappearance and fate.

 

However, authorities have just found human remains in a Phoenix storm drain situated very near the Tempe water basin and less than 10 miles from the Cadillac Ranch where Culolias was booted from two weeks ago.

Maintenance workers spotted the body (and bones) at the bottom of an access shaft early Wednesday, and Maricopa County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Brandon Jones said police had to wait a few hours while crews determined if it was safe before homicide detectives could climb down 30 feet to the bottom of it.

Jones said detectives did not recover an entire corpse as yet and planned to re-explore the shaft again shortly. Investigators think it's not very likely the victim accidentally fell in there and may have been dumped at 43rd Avenue and Broadway Road.

If it is Culolias and perps relocated him to this site from the area a helicopter pilot had reported seeing a body floating in the water last week, then this is exactly why police are NOT supposed to publicize a crime tip BEFORE they actually investigate it themselves. (As the Tempe police seem to have done before thoroughly searching that remote locale in the Salt River basin.)

*This story is developing; more updates, if any, will be posted below.


Update #1 - December 13, 2012: Sources say body from storm drain is not intact and is that of an adult.  (NOTE: this does not necessarily imply that the deceased was dismembered--corpses submerged in water decompose rapidly, and when such a waterlogged body is additionally exposed to air it will begin to deteriorate at an accelerated rate.  See Drowning Forensics for complete analysis.

 

Smiley Never Sleeps

The 'Smiley Face Killer' Epidemic Spreads

The disappearances and drownings of young men is a phenomena that is no longer limited to America's northland anymore, as recent years have seen this plague steadily seeping over the border with Canada, across the Atlantic into Europe, and, now, down into the southern parts of the United States as well.

 

 Since 1997 it's become a predictable pattern: September to April, anywhere there is a body of water, youths nearby go missing and are found in it days, weeks, or months later.

 

The Smiley gang never sleeps it would seem...and neither should we, until we catch them.

 

With that aim in mind, spread the word today that 19-year-old Jack Culolias from Arizona State University just vanished under suspicious circumstances on November 30, 2012. His family has flown to the area this week to search on their own for him and already discovered what they believe is one of his red sneakers near the shores of the Salt River basin.

 

As I write, police divers are scouring those waters for him, but have found no trace thus far.

 

Case Background

 

On Friday night November 30th, at approximately 11:00 PM, Jack Culolias was reportedly escorted from a popular bar named Cadillac Ranch in the Tempe Marketplace by a security guard and/or police officer. Eyewitnesses say he was then forced into a taxicab, but officials have not confirmed this aspect of the case yet. The California native left behind his wallet and his cell phone, and no one has seen or heard from him since.

 

Police reports were promptly filed by his fraternity pledge-mates at Sigma Alpha Epsilon on December 2nd 2012. They also began contacting local hospitals and jails, searching the area around Tempe Marketplace and communicating with his family and suitemates, in an effort to locate their missing frat brother.

 

Case Developing

 

Day six since Jack disappeared has seen hundreds of volunteers and police assembling to renew the search for him. Preliminary DNA testing of the red tennis shoe tentatively confirms it belongs to Culolias, so the primary focus of the search-and-rescue is on the riverbank where the article was found.

 

Controversies

 

1. Police assert that Culolias expressed concerns to his mother about an upcoming hazing event he was allegedly going to participate in, but the prospective fraternity disputes that claim, stating no such pledging events had been scheduled this term. They were at the bar in question on the night the youth disappeared and continue to swear that staff physically removed the youth for some unknown reason.

 

2. The Cadillac Ranch bar-and-grill has been criticized for its role in the ASU student's odd disappearance. However, management insist they are not culpable and say they are complying with police investigators to ascertain what happened  to Culolias and where he may have gone to. They issued the following press statement yesterday:

 

"We are fully and promptly complying with all investigation requests from Tempe PD and have been since day one. Our business has been open in Tempe for 5 years, it employs 65 good people, and has never had an incident like this. We are members of the Tempe and ASU community, and we are deeply sympathetic to Jack's family and friends. We hope that they find Jack safe and sound. Finding Jack is what is most important right now."

 

3. Police released a statement indicating they have "evidence" that the 19-year-old had been drinking and was thrown out of the pub because he was "intoxicated."

 

Culolias' mother is in receipt of a bar tab that apparently refutes this claim. "He had his credit card there and it had an $8 tab on it," she said. "I'm sure it was for only one cocktail."

 

Description

 

Jack Culolias has dark hair and brown eyes, and is six-feet tall weighing between 150 pounds to 170 pounds. He is also an identical twin.

Individuals with any information concerning this missing persons case are asked to contact either the ASU campus police at 480-965-3456 or the Tempe Police Department at 480-350-8311.

 

Follow and join the search for Jack with the Facebook group Bring Jack Home.